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November 01, 2011

Clarity vs. Obfuscation: Steve Jobs & Occupy Wall Street

I have no intention of making this blog a political one, but I did find interesting Frank Rich’s insight into the phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street protesters mourning Steve Jobs, a multi-billionaire:

Yet those demonstrators who celebrated Jobs were not necessarily hypocrites… Jobs’s genius… was his ability “to strip away the excess layers of business, design, and innovation until only the simple, elegant reality remained.” The supposed genius of modern Wall Street is the exact reverse, piling on excess layers of business and innovation on ever thinner and more exotic creations until simple reality is distorted and obscured.

Just food for thought. (Oh, and if you haven’t read Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, you’re missing out. I’m halfway through his follow-up, Boomerang, and it’s similarly compelling.)

There is no doubt that Jobs was not exactly a saint in all of his dealings with people – but he (or, really, Apple) provides tools where you know what you are getting and know what you have to pay. Marketing – sure, but no gimmicks. And the after-sale support is second to none.

It is not this type of wealth accumulation which is seen as the problem. An honest buck for a good product is Capitalism at its best.. and not at all what Wall Street represents.

Gio — 6:32 AM on November 02, 2011

There is a problem when a company’s business practices include ruthless anti-competitive behaviour and attempts to lock-in customers at every turn…. In other words, Apple are as just bad as any other big corporation – they just have more apologists.